Nuts and Bolts
by A.j
Summary: Random, short one-shots. Tony/Pepper. Comics and movie.
1. Every Second Song

Title: Every Second Song  
Author: A.j.  
Spoilers: _The Invincible Iron Man _#3.  
Rating: PGish.  
Warning: Sappy. Very, very sappy. hides  
Notes: Accidentally written as a prompt-that-doesn't-count for BJ. Cleaned up and expanded. Not beta'd though.

Summary: It's been fifteen years, but she continues to surprise him.

* * *

Tony remembers a time when it was easier to roll out of bed in the mornings. When the copious weight of decisions made and traded and forced didn't weigh on him like sand. It was a long, damn time ago. He's probably lying to himself anyway.

"Hey." Pepper's voice is quiet, drifting over the balcony and into the bright morning air. It's one of those beautiful days that is crisp and clear, a perfect day in early fall. Tony smiles and leans back in his chair, glances back towards the woman behind him.

"Hi. Need any-"

"Help?" She raises an eyebrow at him and moves further onto the balcony. Her movements are slow and controlled, the cane she's using reflecting silver in the sun. Rehab is going well, but there's only so quickly you can go after most of a building falls on you. No heels for Pepper Potts in the near future.

Tony's fine with that. She's breathing and really? That's all that matters.

"I'm fine, Tony." She smiles down at him, her hand drifting over the curve of his shoulder. "Mostly."

"I've been where you are, Pepper. You are completely lying."

She snorts. "And on vicodin. It's better than it was yesterday, and that's all I can ask for."

He nods and kicks out her chair. "Fair enough. Today's a half-day, right?"

He watches as she easies herself into the offered seat. Three months ago, it's unlikely that she'd even be in the building, let alone sitting down with him for breakfast. The last year had been... well. If he could strike the entire thing from his memory and start over, he'd do it in an instant.

Happy. That fucking registration act. Steve. Zeke.

Her being here and eating with him isn't worth the loss, but it isn't supposed to be. It's a bright spot in a really dark, fucking time, and he's more than happy to grab on with both hands and not let go. He takes a sip of his coffee.

"You have that look again," she uses his distraction to snag a piece of fruit off of his plate. Her nails had been done recently, he notices. They're rounded and perfect. It's such a Pepper thing that it takes a few seconds to actually register her comment.

"What look?"

She raises a shoulder and gives him a half-smile. "The look that made me fall in love with you all those years ago."

His brand new heart is beating hard against his ribs, and for an instant he almost slips into the underskin out of sheer shock. "What?"

Pepper's laugh is bright and jarring, a sharp counterpoint to his sudden lightheadedness. It's painful to listen to and something of that must show on his face because she stops, face closing to a serious expression that he's become increasingly intimate with over the last few years.

"I'm not laughing at you." Her eyes don't leave his and he's grateful for it. He's never known Pepper to lie, at least not to him.

"Then why?" Because he needs to know what brought about this sudden shift. Why _this_ morning is when she's finally decided to speak. To throw open years of shadows and missed opportunities and fraught glances.

"Oh, Tony." Her smile is sad. Ten parts nostalgia, two parts exasperation, and another eight parts warmth, it wraps around him like a hug or a shroud. "You know I love you. You've always known that."

"You-" He breathes deeply. Gathers the fear and the shock into his lungs and then pushes it out in one long exhale. "I don't know what to say."

She shrugs and poaches another strawberry off his plate. "Don't say anything then. It's not like saying it out loud changes anything."

"How can you _say_ that?" The vehemence in his tone surprises him, but not much. Pepper is... Pepper is something he's never been able to define. Friend, yes. Brilliant employee, definitely. Someone who confuses the hell out of him on a minutely basis? No question.

"I say it because it's true. You know that I love you. I know that you love me, even if you can't bring yourself to even think it." She reaches over and lays a hand on his forearm. Without thinking he turns his hand over and clutches at her fingers, entwining them with his own.

He drops his face. Takes a moment, and when he finally speaks, the words are soft. "How do you know?"

She lets go of his hand, but not completely. Just pulls it so that it's lying against the front of her robe, just below her breasts. Confused he looks up. Her smile is gentle and sad. "Because of this."

And then he can feel it. The hard ridge of scar tissue settled just below where her bra would hit. The reactor. He closes his eyes, relief and fear warring with something he can't quite name.

Pepper's voice is gentle in his ears, reaching into the weary places, the dark places that seem to keep growing and growing with each passing year. "Without hesitation, because I needed it, you gave me this. Years, Tony. For years you've never let anyone near this tech. But for me?"

And then his hand is under her robe. Pushing up the camisole she uses for pajamas and running over the still healing scar. Her skin is hot under his hand and so very, very alive.

It takes him a bit to let go. To lean back away from her and try and collect himself. When he finally looks up again, looks at _her_, she's still smiling. Her robe is open, but her shirt is down and her long hair is blowing in the gentle morning breeze.

She's not young. There are lines around her eyes that weren't there before. Her face is narrower than he remembers, due to sickness and weight loss, but also maturity. It hits him like a canon shot that he's known this woman for nearly fifteen years. She's still here.

"Why now? Why today?" Because he needs to know.

She shrugs again, looks out over the buildings around and below them. "Maybe because I'm tired of not saying them." She looks back, her blue eyes wide and sad in her face. "I lost Happy. I loved him deeply and still do. And it wasn't because you pushed me off on him - and don't tell me you didn't because you did - but because he was a good, sweet man who loved me."

Tony nods, waiting for her to continue. He doesn't know what to say. He honestly has no idea where she's going with this. "And?"

"And I'm healing." She leans back in her chair, letting herself relax into the seat and the moment and the reality she's created. "I'm healing and I'm tired of this being unspoken. I'm tired of being The Woman, Tony. The one you don't think you're good enough for. I'm not a prize. I'm me. We don't have to change anything. I don't know if I'm ready for that yet. I don't know that either of us will ever be ready to be more than what we are." She shakes her head and smiles at him.

Stunned, he leans back in his chair and tries to process. Watches as she nonchalantly pours herself a cup of tea - one of the many changes in his breakfast habits over her two month-convalescence in his home - before smearing butter on a slice of toast. Like it's just another day. Like what she'd just said hadn't completely altered his world.

And then he realizes that it hasn't. It doesn't feel all that different. He doesn't feel all that different. Just... better.

"I love you too."

The toast falls from her fingers and lands, butter down, on the table cloth with a light squish. He laughs, partly at her expression and partly because he means it. And he's said it out loud. To her.

"Okay," she says and then her hand is warm against his face, fingers tracing the curve of his cheek and eyebrow. He thinks she might be crying, but he can't quite tell with the glare of the sun. "Okay."

They smile at each other like that, touching and surrounded by breakfast items and the waking sounds of the city below.

-fin-


	2. A Distinct Lack of Drugs

Title: A Distinct Lack of Drugs  
Author: A.j.  
Rating: PG-13  
Spoilers: General _Iron Man_ movie mythology.  
Notes: This was... a joke. I read too many "Tony proposes to Pepper" ficlets in the space of a day and my brain went "Ein minuten bitte."

Summary: "Virginia Potts, will you marry me?"

* * *

"Virginia Potts, will you marry me?"

She squinted at him in the dim - ROMANTIC - candle light of the room. "Are you high?"

Well. That was a mood killer. "No, I'm _not_ high. Why would you think I was high?"

"Because the last four times you proposed to me, you were either drunk or high, and since you've had nothing but Perrier tonight, I went with high." She squinted some more and reached to check his pupils. "Are you on coke?"

He batted her hands away and frowned down at her. "Seriously, what is _wrong_ with you?"

If he weren't so annoyed with having his very carefully (fine, it was kind of half-assed, but in a sweet way) plotted proposal blown completely out of the sky, he'd have thought her eye rolling was adorable. Actually, it'd been all the 'adorable' and 'cute' and 'damn those are some fuck-me heels' moments over the last six months that had gotten him to this point. Well, that and the marathon sex he'd finally tricked... er, _talked_ her into.

"Hey, now, I'm not the one proposing. Speed? E? Something I don't know how to pronounce?" She grabbed his wrist and went for the pulse point. "I'm not really up on the designer stuff, but if you're going to take it, could you please let me know what it is so that I can let the EMT know what you OD'd on?"

"Okay, that's just creepy." He shrugged her away and glared down at her. She was in her stalking feet and it always surprised him when she lost those critical heel-enhanced inches. "I am _not_ high, and I'm serious about the marriage thing."

She popped that damn eyebrow up to her hairline and he almost groaned. "Marriage thing?"

"_Yes_. Marriage. Rings, cake, and humiliating photos. There'll be an open bar." He brightened at that, just a little. This was definitely not going the way he'd planned. "Me in a tuxedo and you in completely lying white? What could be more fun?"

She was staring at him again. In that 'No, _seriously_ what kind of drug?' way.

"Oh, for... I am _not_ on drugs!"

"You just said a wedding would be _fun_. Do you remember the last wedding we went to?"

He thought about it. "No."

"Yeah, exactly." Pepper crossed her arms and tapped her foot. "I'm still sending apology cards out for that. So, no, you and a wedding does _not_ equate to fun in my head."

He sighed and shuffled over next to her. "So this was a bad idea?"

She nodded and that soft silly look that had originally settled on her face when she'd opened the door popped back up. He loved that look. She looked so _young_ and happy when she was wearing it.

"Yeah," she said and leaned into him. "Right now it is."

He blinked. Looked down at her. "That wasn't a no."

She smiled up at him. "But it wasn't a yes either."

His smile was bright and wide and then his arm was around her and it just felt... _right._

"It better not be meth."

-fin-


	3. An Aside

Title: An Aside  
Author: A.j.  
Rating: PG  
Spoilers: _Iron Man_ movie. This is a wee bit down the road.

Summary: Every now and then, she hits him on the head. Just when he needs it.

* * *

"You're an idiot. You know that, right?"

Tony rolled his eyes and winced as she pulled another icepack - rather roughly, he felt - off of his arm. Without bothering to loosen the tape. "I'm a genius. You know that."

"Right." Pepper pulled off another ice pack, ignoring his yelp. "_Genius_."

He rubbed the raw skin of his shoulder and sent her a glare. "That sounds sarcastic there, Potts. You know, you didn't used to be this angry. Do I have to look into management classes?"

"You didn't used-" Pepper stopped, took a breath and went back to fishing for something in the first aide kit. "Okay, no, you used to be _exactly_ this stupid, but back then, you'd just go do something stupid and _moderately_ dangerous."

He nodded. "True. But less fulfilling. And heroic."

That earned him a slap to the back of the head.

"Ow, dammit! Seriously, Pepper, what the hell is wrong with you tonight?" He turned the chair so that he could see her, wounded expression firmly in place. Not that he minded a little slap and tickle, but this definitely seemed like there wouldn't be any 'tickle' at the end of it.

What he found was not... something he really knew how to deal with.

Pepper was crying. Okay, there was one tear and she was red enough that she looked like she would probably explode at any moment. She looked _furious_. And really hot.

"You are... ARG." She threw down the ice pack she still had in her hand and, honest to god, stomped her foot. He hadn't known people actually did that outside of bad romantic comedies. "You're a complete asshole!"

"Um." He blinked.

"You go out there in that damn suit, risking your _life_ and getting _shot_ at and then come back here with bruises and cuts _that need stitches_ and you make jokes like it's nothing. It's not _nothing_, Tony! It's your life!"

She stopped, shaking her hands in front of herself, flapping them lightly. He was too stunned to do anything other than wait. When she finally looked up, her eyes were wet.

He didn't know what to do. At all. Crying women were something he had next to _no_ experience with outside a few very fuzzy memories of his mother.

"I-" He shook his head, completely bereft of anything to say.

"Just." Pepper took a few deep breaths and crossed her arms over her chest. She stared down at the shiny concrete floor of the garage. "This scares me, Tony. Every single time. And I can't do this if you're just going to make a joke about it. Your life is not a joke."

"Pepper..." And then instinct kicked in. It surprised him as much as her when his hand was suddenly on her shoulder. "You're right."

She blinked and raised her face to look at him. Blinked again. Apparently liked what she saw there. "I know."

"It's not a joke." Her shoulder was shaking, just a little, under his hand, and in that moment he can see another person whispering other words. "I'm not wasting my life, Pepper."

Her face softens, just a little and she raises a hand to cover his. "I don't think that, Tony. It's just. _Your_ life is important too."

The moment stretches and holds, but comes to an end with a loud resounding crash from across the garage. They both jump and look to see the newly refurbished fire safety robot hovering over one of the many dolly's littered through out the workshop. Tony swears it shoots them a guilty look before skirting the ojbect and heading off in its original direction.

"City college?" Pepper's voice is wry and the little knot of fear that had taken up residence in his chest loosened.

"Oh, yeah," he said and smiled. Just a little.

-fin-


	4. Five Minutes

Title: Five Minutes  
Author: A.j.  
Spoilers: _Iron Man_ movie.  
Fault: splash  
Rating: PG

Summary: "Mr. Stark? Are you ready?"

* * *

He watches her, out of the corner of his eye or over mugs of coffee or glasses of expensive booze. She moves like a dancer through all the pieces of his life, her movements smooth and graceful. Every shift or hand gesture full of purpose.

It occurred to him a long time ago that she was put on this planet specifically for him. Not in the ways that his other enjoyments or passions were; no, Pepper is here for _Tony_. The man that he's never quite managed to be. The man he might be on the verge of becoming.

He'd blown the thought off at the time, convinced that it'd been the product of an extremely drunken train of thought. That still doesn't explain why it keeps coming back.

"Mr. Stark? Are you ready?" She's smiling at him in that tentative way that means she's asked the question a few times already, and she's trying to work out whether or not he's on his third or seventh scotch.

"No." He shakes his head and answers with an honesty that frightens him. Luckily, she doesn't know what he means. "Not yet. I need a little more time."

Surprised, she blinks but recovers enough to nod and refocus on her palm pilot. "Oh. Okay. I can probably buy you another fifteen minutes before we have to leave. Is that alright, or should I reschedule?"

Her eyes are clear and bright and it hurts to stare at this woman who _hasn't left_, no matter how often or frequently he's tried to make her leave. It's humbling, and for the umpteenth time in the last six months he feels very, very small.

"Fifteen minutes should be fine, Ms. Potts." His smile feels strange and jagged, but he does it anyway. "I just need a little more time."

Listening to her walk away, her voice and mind occupied with her headset and the person at the other end, he closes his eyes and wishes he was better. Ready.

Because as much as she is everything he's ever needed, he knows she deserves so much more.

-fin-


	5. Things You Don't Expect

Title: Things You Don't Expect  
Author: A.j.  
Rating: PG  
Spoilers: The _Iron Man_ movie. Six to eight months down the road.  
Notes: Originally part of a longer story... well. That longer story sucked, but this opening bit seemed amusing so. Enjoy!

Summary: It takes Pepper six months to notice that she's the one running Stark Industries.

* * *

It takes Pepper six months to notice that she's the one running Stark Industries. They are six of the most miserable months of her life; chuck full of meetings, hiring, fund raisers, and hours upon hours of highly technical reading. All of it is done because one meeting turned into four hundred and thirty and her boss is an _engineer_.

Once upon a time, back when the shine of being the personal assistant of Mr. Tony Stark was new and undented - those were a glorious two days - she'd patted herself on the back for landing what was going to be the highest paid milk run ever created.

Staring bleakly at a desk covered in three-ring binders, old coffee cups, and four separate phones, Pepper wonders if she can make Tony build her a time machine so she can go back in time and beat herself up.

"Yolanda?" Her second assistant ducks her dark head in the door, eyebrow raised. She doesn't remember when she hired Yolanda _or_ Olga, but she has a vague recollection of spectacularly firing Obidiah Stane's evil assistant (turns out he had _contingency plans_ for being electrocuted and they involved an angry, blonde assistant named Marta) and hiring the two cleaning women who'd witnessed it. It had been one of her better ideas, fortunately. Both Yolanda and Olga had been working through their MBA programs with the help of the Stark UCLA tuition reimbursement package. Both could type 80wpm, knew their ways around a spreadsheet and Outlook, and were related to most of the state of California.

"Yeah, boss? You want me to grab Olga?" The younger woman stayed partially hanging in the door, just in case Pepper needed her to flag the other girl down.

"No." Pepper looked desolately at the debris covering her desk, then over at Tony's bigger, considerably emptier one across the way. "No, I just. Yolanda, what the fuck am I doing?"

"Apparently not the financials. Are you okay, boss?" Yolanda's heels clicked quietly on the polished floors of the Stark Industries penthouse office. "Because you look kind of pale and you just swore there. You don't swear."

"I know, I know." Pepper dropped her head, miserably, into her hands and pushed. "Do you know how I spent the last half hour?"

"Is this a trick question?"

The strangled sob Pepper let out could have been a laugh in another life. A _long ago_ other life. "No. I honestly want to know if you know what I've been doing for the past half hour."

"Well," Yolanda's voice was right next to her elbow now. "If you stuck by your schedule - and you usually do - you just spent the last half hour on a conference call with the Stark Industries plant managers in Georgia, discussing the plans for the conversion and production implementation of the arch reactor technology. Am I wrong?"

"No, you're exactly right." Pepper glared at the phone she'd put down just before her massive and life-changing epiphany. "They're on track for the switch-over and might actually be ahead of schedule, depending on when the new shipments of the Japanese computer chips get there. Osaka's been in touch and _they're_ ahead of schedule too."

"Well, that's good, right? If things are going better than SOP, that's something we should celebrate?" The young woman looked at her boss encouragingly, still with no clue as to why she looked on the verge of a sobbing fit. Loss of emotional control and Pepper Potts did not go well together in Yolanda Alvarez's mental map of the universe. In fact, they generally didn't inhabit the same airspace, let alone the same room.

Pepper just numbly shook her head and kept glaring at the phone. "I got through the whole phone call without having to consult any of the manuals. I actually _explained_ bits of the technical composition and marketing scheme to the plant foreman."

"Oh-kay." Yolanda waited.

"Yolanda! Six months ago, this technology was so cutting edge that a team of scientists worked two weeks on the technology - _established_ technology, mind you - and couldn't make heads or tails of the improvements Tony Stark made! _I just explained it to a man trained in engineering._ ME. And I understood it!"

"Right. And this is bad."

"I'm _running _this _company_."

"Ah, okay." There was a clink on the desk and when Pepper looked down, there was a tumbler mostly full of extremely expensive liquor. She knew it was extremely expensive because she'd been the one who'd ordered it last year for Tony's personal use. Damn man hadn't been in the office long enough to actually kill the third bottle. "Figured that out, did you? Olga was guessing it'd take another month or two."

"What!?"

Yolanda's face was kind in the fading natural light of the room. "That you're _the_ boss."

Pepper sputtered a bit, eyes darting around the room and the desks, trying to take everything in. "But how did it _happen_?"

"Best guess?" Yolanda waved a hand to indicate the large Stark Industries complex out the main window. "Mr. Stark trusts you."

"But why is everyone else listening?"

At that, Yolanda threw her head back and laughed, long and hard. When the giggles finally petered out, she actually had to wipe a few tears away. "Oh, Miss Potts, you are good for the soul. Honey, you're the only one who sounds like they know what they're talking about."

"I was just an accountant!" Her voice comes out high and reedy and the voice of someone who's on the verge of a panic attack. It's not a state of mind Pepper has much experience with, but she figures she's allowed. She just found out she's running a Fortune 500 (okay, more like Fortune 30) company, after all.

"Mmm." Yolanda's hand is comforting and warm on her shoulder; something to ground her into the moment. "And I was just a cleaning lady. Turns out, we're allowed to grow as people. This stuff happens, Ms. Potts."

And then Pepper is standing, teetering slightly because her concentration is shot and she's not actually in the mood for the Monolo's she pulled on this morning. More than anything else, at this exact moment, she wants her pajama pants, bunny slippers, and a week long vacation. And to track Tony down so she can bludgeon him with something heavy.

She blinks, coming to another rather startling realization. She hasn't actually laid eyes on Tony - and CNN's coverage of the hostage situation at that downtown bank does _not_ count - for a few days. Maybe as many as five. That hadn't happened since-

"I- I have to go." Pepper tucks her hair behind her ears and casts a distracted eye around for her briefcase and purse. Proving that she's shaping up to be an absolutely stellar Executive Assistant, Yolanda shoves the Kate Spade into Pepper's loose fingers before turning her around and aiming her at the door.

"Don't worry about your appointments tonight, boss. I'll reschedule. Take the night off. Put up your feet and drink yourself sick. I'll make sure that you don't have anything before 2 tomorrow."

With a few quick pushes and a distracted wave from Olga, Pepper finds herself blinking at the setting sun on the way to her parking garage. It occurs that she hasn't actually gone home before 6pm in... She thinks about it. The time she went home with the flu and slept for twenty straight hours before flying to New York City for a board meeting didn't count. Neither did the early outs on benefit nights.

God, had it been six months? _Six months!?_

Frustrated, scared, and more than a little freaked out by life in general, Pepper slid behind the wheel of her car. The scream, when it came was loud and long. But it did make her feel better.

-fin-


	6. We Couldn't Bring The Columns Down

Title: We Couldn't Bring The Columns Down  
Author: A.j.  
Spoilers: For IIM #3.  
Rating: PG  
Notes: I have no idea what the hell this is. Also, Irene Adler is basically the woman that got away for Sherlock Holmes. It's kind of... _a thing._

Summary: Pepper Potts is not a woman in a refrigerator.

&

Pepper never liked the Sherlock Holmes mysteries. There was something that always bothered her about how a man could see every tiny detail about other people's lives and seem completely ignorant of his own.

It took her years to figure out that irony.

&

She remembers having a crush on Tony. Remembers how her heart used to do that little-girl flip and how she used to blush and dream about happy-ever-afters. She tries to forgive herself for some of the sappier ones, but it never quite works.

Somewhere along the line, she stopped dreaming of weddings and babies - I was _allowed_ to be young, she keeps telling (but not believing) herself - and started dreaming in numbers and people and business.

Waking up in her bed, alone, she realizes that both paths probably would have lead her right here. To a perfectly kept apartment, amazing clothing, and an empty bed.

She wonders when she stopped being a romantic. (She'll never admit that she misses it.)

&

The first time she ever saw Tony in the Extremis suit, she wanted to vomit. She'd gone through a classical sci-fi kick in junior high. Read everything she could get her hands on, from Heinlein (god, what an asshole) to Asimov and all points in between.

Watching the gold wrap around him, spill out of him like water, she can think of nothing but the cautionary tales of robots and AI's gone horribly wrong. It's worse, somehow, because Tony is the most human person she's ever met. Full of anger and aggression and fear, but dominated by a desire to _do better_. Potential he can't quite grasp.

When the undersuit had finished and he was shining and gold in front of her, she'd smiled at him. Eyes blank she'd mouthed words she hadn't meant and didn't remember. Watched his attention wander to something in the distance, far away in the world.

It had only been then that she'd found some familiarity.

&

_I can see through satellites now, Pepper._

_You've never seen_ _**me**__,_ she doesn't say.

&

Her last thoughts before millions of tons of glass, steel, and stone fall down around her aren't of her family or her friends. They're of Tony, who was still on the top floor. _Tony_ who was probably already dead.

She doesn't actually feel the beam that knocks her under a shelter of rubble, just wakes up to red and gold metal and pain.

_Goddamn,_ she thinks, but says "My hero."

&

She wakes up to his hand in hers and him asking her a question.

Holds the reactor up and out to her. Explains everything in as much detail as he thinks she can handle.

She watches him, the world around her fuzzy and out of sorts because of pain and drugs and the surreal aspect of this evening. His words buzz around her, familiar and soothing in the stark white of the hospital room, but all she can think is that she should be in her hotel by now, not here.

"Yes," she says, finally. "Yes."

&

The day he'd asked her to come work for him again (it had been a Tuesday) she'd watched a dog get hit by a car. It'd been from a distance while on her way to work. The poor thing had gotten spooked by something and dashed out into the street, heedless of it's owner's cries. She remembered the crunch of metal and that long, sharp yelp all day. Replayed it in her mind.

She hadn't been surprised when Tony'd appeared in front of her, eyes dark and posture bent.

It'd been a kick to the gut, seeing him. Remembering his 'coming out' and remembering her baby (the one that never was) and remembering _everything_ and how much she missed him.

That was the day that she'd finally given in.

&

One day, Pepper Potts wakes up with a reactor in her chest strong enough to blow most of New York City off the map.

It's only when she's finally off all of the drugs that she realizes how incredibly funny that is. She laughs about it so hard she starts crying. She never tells anyone why.

&

"You know," Pepper finally tells Tony. They're both spread out in the Helicarrier's smallest conference room with PDA's and paperwork and files that are starting to make absolutely no sense. "I've always hated the name Irene."

"What?" He'd asked, blinking owlishly at her while still brain-deep in a reverse-engineered schematic. "What are you even talking about?"

He's staring at her like he thinks she's insane, and it takes her a few seconds to start laughing. When she does, it's loud and deep, and she can feel it all the way past her scars and the years between them.

"Never mind," she giggles, and goes back to her work.

She knows his eyes stay on her.

&

She still doesn't like the Sherlock Holmes mysteries.

-fin-


	7. Art Appreciation rated M

Title: Art Appreciation  
Author: A.j.  
Rating: NC-17  
Fandom: _Iron Man,_ movie-verse.  
Notes: This has no redeeming value what so ever. Enjoy!

Summary: Tony Stark likes women.

&

Tony likes women.

He likes how they smell and taste and feel. All those curves and all that skin spread out before him like a unique work of art.

He's had a lot of experience in art appreciation.

It's something he's grateful for; both for the initial experience and because, right at this moment, he knows exactly what to do. And he knows that if he were any less experienced or just a little bit more excited, he'd have already made a complete idiot out of himself already. Probably twice.

Below him, sprawled across his bed like some kind of modern day offering to the gods - and yes, sometimes he _is_ that narcissistic - is Pepper Potts. Her skin is flushed and eyes hazy. She's naked, framed in the tousled red sheets and red hair and looks like she's been ridden hard and long. She lies where she's fallen, he thinks, and that thought tightens the muscles of his back with pride and lust and a hundred other things he can't quite name yet.

He can't help but smile at the picture she presents. Debauchery at its finest; control made chaos.

He shifts down, pulling out of her. Everything male in him tingles at the way she whimpers. It might be soreness - they had been pretty athletic - or loss, but the result is the same, and he wants her again.

But he's not eighteen anymore and something he learned along the way in all those 'art appreciation' lessons is that women needed time to recover too. Friction and heat and sensitive nerves eventually equate to boundaries that even his impatience can't crack, and Pepper hit hers two minutes ago. It had been glorious to watch.

He feels his lips curl up as he runs his hands over her sides and the slopes of her thighs. He plants his hands on either side of her hips and sliding himself down the length of her, letting the edges of his arc reactor graze and vibrate on the fine, invisible hairs that cover her torso. She shivers and drags a hand across her neck and down her collarbone, across her stomach and up into his hair. He lets her tilt his head back and up so that their eyes meet across the still-pebbled tips of her breasts.

"Hi," she whispers, her expression relaxed and blissful.

"Hi," he says and lowers his chin until it rests, lightly, on her still-quivering belly. "How are you?"

She hums, laughing a little at the ceiling, and keeps running her fingers through his hair. Her nails are short, but firm, and she scratches his scalp lightly. The sensation runs glorious pin-pricks down his spine and the skin of his face.

"Pretty damn good." She licks her lips and closes her eyes before nuzzling her head back against the impromptu pillow made by the bunching of the sheets. The pillow he'd shoved under her hips earlier is still where he put it, but he makes no move to shift it. He likes that he can rest against her lower body and long down on her face. That he doesn't have to strain his neck.

Maybe it's sexist and cave-man of him, but whatever. Everyone always tells him he's an asshole anyway.

"How are you?" She finishes, wiggling her hips and belly just a little against his weight.

"Oh, I'm more than okay." He strokes the skin he can reach, pushing down a little on her belly as a warning not to move. She complies, but lets him go to stretch her arms above her head, arching her spine and breasts in the most distracting of ways.

"Yes," he rumbles in response. "Definitely more than okay."

Her eyes and smile are wicked in the soft light of the bedroom. "Glad I could... be of service, Mr. Stark."

His favorite part of Pepper, the bit of skin that brings him back time and again, is the join of her thigh to her pelvis, just below her left hip. The strip of softness that starts just above the light stubble of her pubic hair and ends before the elliptical curve that indicates bone.

It's here that he nips her in retaliation. Her laugh, because that reaction is instantaneous, levels out into a low moan as he does it again.

"Should I tattoo your name there, Tony?"

He grins up at her, licks the light red mark left by his nip just before kissing and sucking it into a bruise. Listens to her breath catch then speed, watches as the skin across her breasts and face flushes again, and goddamn this woman has an amazing recovery time. His smile is predatory and sure. It's one that Pepper has admitted drives her absolutely insane.

"_You look like Lucifer when you smile like that."_ She'd said, weeks ago. She'd been naked then too, spread across his chest, his fingers skimming the dip of her spine and the upper curves of her ass.

"No," he says now, slowly skimming his beard across her hip and down to her thigh, just to watch her shudder. "I like my mark better."

He can feel the muscles of her stomach twitch and flex under his chin and hands, her moan is low and needy in the best of ways. She's beautiful like this. Her hair unbound and spread across his bed, so far gone on him, on this, that he's pretty sure she doesn't know she's playing with her own nipples.

Sex with Pepper has been a revelation from the very first day; one he's kicking himself for not having sooner.

"Your mark is temporary," her voice is rough and smoky, like a bottle of Glenfiddich.

"That just means I have to go back and do it again." He edges her legs wider with his shoulders, adjusts the pillow to tilt her hips just a bit more and spreads her out like a meal. And it might be too fucking soon for him to be hard, but he knows that before the night's out, he's going to be inside her again. But first...

"Fuck, Tony." Pepper stretches her back, tries and fails to get her elbows underneath her before giving up. Giving in.

"Not yet," he rumbles, all the while spreading her open with his fingers. Staring at her sex and just _breathing_ on her. "Soon."

Oh, yes. Tony Stark likes women. _Especially_ the way they taste.

-fin-


	8. Tony is Four

Tony Is Four  
A.j.

Notes: Written as commentfic that cannot go anywhere without 1. An actual plot 2. About 20,000 more words, I decided to throw it up as fic amnesty. We'll just go with Tony actually getting thrown back in time.

---

Initially, he thinks that somehow, someone slipped him something extra special (or he has a concussion or Puppetmaster is playing games again, or... okay, he really needs a less dramatic life because what the hell?) into his espresso. If only because the only experience he's ever had similar to this was that one time in college when Rhodey's roommate's sister's boyfriend landed some honest-to-god LSD and he spent six hours watching his own feet grow and shrink.

After all, waking up roughly three feet shorter and forty years younger isn't exactly a normal occurrence. For him. He has no idea what the hell the X-Men do.

The ruufies theory gets through right out the window after he spends a few minutes staring at his hand, trying to see if it's interesting or strange in some way. It's not, so drugs are out.

It takes him a bit to get unwound from under his, strangely familiar, Death Star sheets and on his feet. A quick recon of the area confirms that yes, this is his childhood bedroom, and yes that is the face he normally sees splashed across every childhood retrospective ever printed about him.

"Motherfucking hell," he whispers and pokes the mirror.

Nope. Finger didn't sink into it. Not The Matrix.

"Anthony?" A quiet, accented voice sounds from outside his door just before a knock sounds. He's damn glad no one else was around to see him jump. Pepper would never have let him live it down. "It's time to get up, young man. Anthony?"

And there she was. In all her buttoned up and orthodic glory. His first true love and nanny.

"Elena?" He'd be embarrassed about the squeak, but he's not even six - that's when he'd been deemed old enough to go without a constant caretaker and Elena had been shuffled out - so whatever.

"Anthony!" Her smile is bright and pleased. "You are awake! That is excellent. We have a long day ahead of us. Come, you need to get dressed."

Blinking, still completely discombobulated from his accidental (he thinks) time travel, he lets Elena bundle him towards his closet. The only thought running through his head is that damn, Pepper's probably pissed.

***

Meeting his parents again is unsettling.

This is not a surprise as a good portion of what he remembers as his life was defined by their absence. At least, that's what he's been able to puzzle out after a couple stints in rehab and Pepper punching him in the arm repeatedly until he 'opened up' and 'talked about his feelings' with her.

Pepper had really gotten violent after the sixth kidnapping attempt. Although, to be fair, he actually had opened up about his 'feelings', so Pepper's method had been leaps and bounds better than S.H.I.E.L.D.'s attempt to get him to talk to a shrink. It figured Rhodey had been right about a good kick in the ass being more effective than anything else.

Still. Parents. Not dead. Awkward.

"Hi, Mom."

Tony felt more than slightly stupid standing in the entrance of the breakfast room, holding Elena's hand and waiting to be invited to sit. He'd forgotten (or repressed) this part of his childhood.

Maria Stark is both prettier and older than he remembers her being. Backlit by the bright windows - Eastern exposure in the mornings, darling!, he remembered her decorating advice - she appears to glow. It's not particularly angelic, given their shared coloring, but it does highlight the soft wrinkles near her eyes and the lines just starting on her hands and neck. She's not how he remembers her, but she's there and not dead (yay), so there's that.

"Tony, come sit down."

Tony let muscle memory take over and in seconds he was comfortably seated, legs dangling oddly, in his chair, to the left of his mother. The booster seat - being short really, really sucked - was surprisingly comfortable for molded plastic. Elena, being well trained, slipped out to go eat in the kitchen, leaving Tony alone with his mother for the first time in something like twenty-five years.

At least, that was the case in his memory.

"You seem quiet this morning, Tony. Did you have good dreams?" His mother's hands are graceful wrapped around her coffee cup. Gold bangles that he dimly remembers being in an old safety deposit box at home dangle from her wrists, and it isn't until that moment that he lets himself feel the deep and heavy weight that's seemingly pressed against his diaphragm.

"Tony?"

He blinks away the haze before addressing his mother and her suddenly worried eyes. "Bad dream," he says and shakes his head. Weird circumstance or not, he's an adult and god knows if this is real or some kind of computer or mental simulation gone horribly, horribly wrong. The person across from him, in all likelihood, isn't Maria Stark, and opening himself up like that just isn't in his nature anymore.

"Oh, I'm sorry, dear." She pats him on the head gently and reaches for the god awful bell she picked up in some 'adorable' shop in the Hamptons to signal the maid to bring out their food. This gives him another clue to his age because Sergio - the Starks' family butler until he turned five and the man ran off with one of his mother's hairdressers (the male one) - had stolen the thing and hidden it in the garage. Tony and his father had found it a few months later and melted it down for parts. "Some food and a walk will probably clear that right out of your head."

Tony nods dutifully and tries to remember just what he was doing before he'd lost consciousness and ended up in this bizarro world. He'd been trying all morning and although it had been a good distraction while Elena was stripping him down - and good god, that had been freaky - his mind was still a blank. The last thing he remembered clearly was talking to Jim Morrison (board member) on the phone and watching Pepper's ass as she walked out of the room to go do something. Nothing relating to Iron Man or S.H.E.I.L.D. or any other weird and wacky superheroing hijinks.

Just a nice morning at the office and a really boring phone call. Somehow, he doubted Jim Morrison had either the ability to send consciousnesses back in time (although the name Rachel Summers rang a vague bell) or give him this complete a hallucination.

Then again, Pepper had shot down his last idea about an addition to the Stark Industries employment application. He still thought a section about mutation ability disclosures was a good idea. Stupid civil rights and privacy laws.

Still, the dream-theory had lost credibility when he'd picked up the algebra book sitting on his desk and read a couple paragraphs while Elena tried to locate his shoes. The words had been fine and understandable and he could even recognize their shapes.

Tony sighed and was about to pick up his spoon to wait for his oatmeal. His mother had always been a big believer in oatmeal. It wasn't (wouldn't be? Aw, _shit_!) until college that he'd been able to escape his mother's pathological fascination with the breakfast food. The woman – he shoots a glance over at her as she lights up a cigarette – had sworn by it and refused to have anything else served at breakfast in her home.

She may have compromised her ethics in regards to his father's career in weapons manufacturing, but Maria Stark was a dyed-in-the-wool hippie when it came to nutrition. Or, y'know. A nutritionist.

Tony watched her take another puff on her cigarette and reflected on the meaning of irony.

And then... and then his father breezed through the door, patting him on the shoulder before moving towards his seat.

At that point Tony knew that that he'd been coasting through the morning on little more than disbelief and déjà vu. Still, despite what a lot of his critics had said about him over the years, he's not _actually_ a machine, and his father's hand on his shoulder makes this hotmess real. It makes a stupid kind of sense, and there's a level of shame to both the realization and the sudden prickle of tears. Pepper had been the first person to point out that he related so much more to his father and had so much more attachment to him than he did his mother. His reaction to Howard Stark's hand on his shoulder affirms that, and Tony resignedly put another tick in the "Pepper Potts Is Never, EVER Wrong About Anything Ever, Except Her Taste In Food" column.

"Hello, family!"

Tony'd forgotten how bombastic his father was. Howard Stark was (and had been) anything but small or meek. It had been something Tony'd tried to emulate with varying degrees of success for most of his life.

But there he was again. Tall and healthy and Istriding/I through the room like absolutely nothing was wrong with his world.

Tony stared down at his spoon and tried not to burst into tears or throw himself at his father's knees.

This was going to be a long damn morning.

---


	9. Stolen Moment

Title: Stolen Moment

* * *

It's not often that Tony gets to watch Pepper unaware. The only reason he's able to now is because he's supposed to be asleep. Had _been_ asleep.

It had been a gentle awakening, not something normal for him. But the hum of the jet's engines and the warmth of the sun through the windows had let him sink slowly back into consciousness; leaving him with this rare gift.

Pepper's hair is bright in the sun, more golden than red in the diffuse light. Her freckles are brighter, product of a long night and worn down concealer. She's staring out the window. Maybe at the clouds, maybe straight into her mind's eye. Tony's never been very good at reading her mind, so.

Still, something inside him aches, just a little at the picture she presents. She's vulnerable in this unobserved moment. Relaxed and distracted into being nothing but herself. He's stealing this moment from her, and the worst bit. The bit that lets him know that as hard as he's trying to be a better man, a better _person_, he's not quiet there yet.

Is that he's not sorry. Not at all.

Eyes slitted and posture soft, he lets himself watch.

-fin-


	10. Five Teeny AU's

Five Teeny AU's that kinda make up one story.

* * *

1. What Tony doesn't know and something Pepper will never, ever tell him is that part of the reason she said no to being his girlfriend is because she wants so badly to say yes, her teeth hurt. She _wants_ him to be the knight in shining armor who'll swoop in and take over her life and love her like no other. She wants him to follow through with all the promises he's not quite making and for everything to be perfect.

But she knows herself and she knows Tony (even if he's in the process of changing), and she knows that childhood dreams never, ever work.

2. He catches her looking at him sometimes. Out of the corner of his eye, or in reflections in mirrors or glass, he'll see her watching him. Not in a weird or creepy way (although, she probably deserves that honor), but with this half-wistful look that gets him half-hard and yearning for a surface to ravish her on.

He doesn't, obviously, but those little looks keep hope alive.

3. It surprises him when he falls in love with someone else. He didn't know that he could have all this unresolved _whatnot_ for Pepper and still honestly love and _adore_ someone else. It's confusing and hard, especially in the moments he catches Pepper off-guard, sadness written in the lines of her eyes and the curve of her mouth. Still, she said _no_, and actually manages to look happy for them - truly, honestly happy.

4. As sad as it sounds, it's only once Tony's in a long-term relationship that Pepper really allows herself to hit the dating scene with any kind of regularity. It actually feels good to have the time off and to spend it with men who aren't _Tony_. This isn't to say that seeing him with his girlfriend isn't hard, or that telling Tony she's got a date with Jeff/Brad/Andrea and watching that possessive streak of his flare up isn't fun.

It just feels like the clock is ticking on inevitability, and she needs to enjoy it while she has the chance.

5. The first time he kisses her, really _kisses_ her, she's crying.


End file.
